Once again, fleeing Myanmar

A fresh outbreak of fighting in eastern Myanmar has forced more than a thousand refugees to flee across the border into Thailand. More than 20,000 refugees have fled to Thailand since the fighting first erupted three weeks ago.

Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC

It is early morning in Wat Maha Wong, a Buddhist temple overlooking the muddy Moei River on the Thailand side of the border with Myanmar. Hundreds of ragged and exhausted people huddle on straw mats waiting for food and medical care. They are among some one thousand people who have fled a fresh outbreak of fighting in eastern Myanmar, formerly Burma, between an ethnic rebel group and government troops. In earlier clashes three weeks ago some 20,000 people fled across the volatile border into Thailand.

I am here with a medical team from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) that is taking part in a humanitarian effort to provide health services and distribute clean water and emergency supplies to the refugees from Myanmar.

“People are dehydrated and exhausted and some sustained injuries as they were fleeing,” says Dr. Nyunt Naing, who is overseeing the IRC’s relief effort at the temple. “Many were unable to bring vital medicines with them and we are replacing them.” 

The refugee crisis broke out following armed clashes on November 8, the day after national elections in Myanmar. Although the election was Myanmar’s first in 20 years, some armed factions are unwilling to accept a new constitution and attempts to bring them under control of the military. As thousands of people moved across the border into Thailand, teams of IRC aid workers in Tak Province distributed medicine, clothing, milk, blankets and other items to the refugees.

From the temple compound scattered gunfire can occasionally be heard as anti-government militias fight the army on the Myanmar side of the border. The recent clashes underline long-simmering tensions between the government and Myanmar’s many ethnic groups, some of which have been fighting for autonomy for decades. 

One refugee, Htay Htay, tells me that earlier this day she was at home in the hamlet of Phaluu when a mortar round landed 500 meters from her house.  

“It was a very loud explosion,” she says. “It landed by the village well. A big tree collapsed and there was a huge hole in the ground. I quickly gathered some clothes and ran for the border with my children.” 

The people of Phaluu, who grow peanuts, beans, corn and other crops, now fear that their harvests will be destroyed along with their houses.

As the sun begins to set over the temple’s gilded pagodas, a fresh group of refugees arrive. With the very real prospect of the conflict spreading across eastern Myanmar, they will certainly not be the last to seek shelter here and elsewhere along the border. 

“This is the first time I have ever been forced from my home,” says Aung Zaw Moe, clutching her one-year-old baby. “My home is so near, just across the river. But it feels very far away today.”